Indian Summer

I just finished 2 1/2 hours of screaming, kicking, whining, banging and crying otherwise known as Jade's Social Studies homework. April told me it was my turn to experience the joy of Jade's homework since I didn't have to work tonight. Thank you April for the lovely gift. Jade has two tests to study for this weekend and a science project. I'm guessing since I'm home all weekend I'll get that joy as well. I found that my patience was wearing thin until I realized that I could outlast her. No matter what she said or did I wasn't going to let her win. Of course April handed me this gift and then proceeded to have her own issues with information that she needed from me for an article she was writing for work. Ahh such a peaceful weekend...

I got irritated with AT&T on Thursday when I got my bill. I had tried 2 months ago to cancel my land line phone service. The nice customer service person told me that I had been paying lots of things at an old price that I could get a much better deal now. She said that if I kept my basic line with no frills it would only cost me $3 a month more than my DSL. I got the bill, and yes it was only $3 more than my old DSL price. However the taxes and additional fees for each minute that was used when someone called me was the final straw. I called Friday and cancelled the line. Now I have to figure out who calls me that is important that only has my old telephone number. The plus side is that I won't be getting anymore of those telemarketing calls anymore. The downs side is that after I took the phone off the wall in our kitchen I was left with an ugly face plate in which my DSL connection is plugged into. April hated the look and demanded I put a phone back on the wall to cover the plate. I found an old black wall phone and put it on the wall. It seems odd to me to have a wall phone that doesn't work just for looks. I'm a real function first kind of person. April looked at it and then wanted a white phone to match the decor. I'm trying to come up with a slim white phone that doesn't work to hang on the wall to cover a silver phone plate outlet.

I called my folks on my cell phone this afternoon. Talked with my father for awhile. My mother has been encouraging him to go and rake the neighbors yard. The neighbor across the street is in his 70's and just had knee surgery. My father who rakes his yard daily now and often the neighbors on either side of him finally was convinced to go and help the neighbor. He bagged and raked all the leaves up. The neighbor was very grateful. My father is 78 and has become the neighbor who is now the yard police. If someone doesn't rake their leaves or the grass isn't cut in a timely manner he can't stand it. He will keep making comments until he will walk down the street with his lawn mower and mow their yard or rake their leaves. He is the guy who rakes the gutters in the street to make sure the water doesn't back up on its way to the storm drain. When I was growing up the neighborhood kids used to make fun of an older man who was just like that. Now I tell my mother that as long as the neighbors don't mind let him do it. If it makes him happy. I told her they can come visit me anytime and do my yard. Now that my father can no longer drive because of his Alzheimer's he prowls around the house constantly looking for things to do. Occasionally my mother will make up and excuse to go to Lowes or Menards just so he can prowl the hardware aisles. I keep trying to think of a way he could volunteer someplace. But his deafness and his disease means that he needs consistent supervision or he will get distracted and confused. He is as strong as an ox and is outside every day that the weather will allow. My grandmother, his mother, lived to be 97. My father and I talked about veterans day and his time in the national guard as tank driver. He regaled me with his shooting ability as a gunner. Then I asked him about his jobs after he left the Alabama national guard. I got him to laughing and talking. He sits quiet a lot of the time. I've made it a point to talk to him about things in his youth and early adulthood. Not about what happened yesterday. He was always a big sports fan but now he can't remember who the players are and what the standings are.

Thinking is such a major part of my life. Reading, discerning, trying to reason things out. I often worry about the disease in my future and wonder if I will be able to cope with if it is in my dna. Sometimes I wonder if I knew that the disease was going to affect me and I only had so many years left of clarity would I do something different. It is that old riddle. If you knew the day you were going to die would you change the way you live your life. My first play I wrote was about a man who wished that he could just walk away from all his troubles. In the play he got his wish or so he thought. As soon as he was free he went racing back to set everything back to the way it was. In the end it was only an illusion that a stranger had given him to see that even though he said he wanted to walk away he really didn't.

Each fall I think back over the years. Fall is always my favorite season. I'm always carried back to my college days. Crisp fall weekends in my freshman year of college. Walking across the campus on cool Wisconsin nights and warm days. Indian summer had arrived. A movie I remember watching was about a machine that could record your brain waves and recreate experiences. As the person was dying they connected the machine and it recorded all of their life moments as they passed before them. I know that one of my moments will be that Indian Summer of 1975 walking across the campus and looking at the leaves. It's hard to believe that was almost 35 years ago. If I close my eyes I can almost touch it once again.

This afternoon as I sat on my patio looking at trees and talking with my father about his youth I was touched by my own. I believe that it is possible to travel through time if we could only shift our brain waves just a little bit and step through the hole that is created. I wouldn't mind living that first year of college again. That was the year I began my career in theatre, I met April, I moved out on my own, my only transportation was a motorcycle, and I played guitar in band, I would stay up all night drinking wine and discussing love, politics and religion. That was a good year. Thanks Dad for helping me remember.

Disappointment

I have been going over lots of details lately about mission statements. The theatre had a short discussion about ours at the last board meeting. The church board meeting had a change to its mission statement proposed as well. It seems like lots of groups are looking at their missions. One of the articles I read in Fast Company magazine was about creating a mission statement that wasn't just a bunch of big words without any concrete meaning. It used an example of a big goal. I've been cursed with a brain that continues to work on things like mission statements in the background while I work on other projects.

I saw a video yesterday from Peoria arts groups that really moved me and then a video that was linked on the theatre communications group site about stage lighting technicians at the Santa Fe Opera. Both videos really caught my attention as they spoke to what's going on with the arts all over the country.

April and I got into a discussion yesterday about the insanity of the political parties in this country. April would like to throw them all out and start over. Throw out the Democrats and the Republicans. I wonder what the mission statement for a new political party would be. I've pretty much stopped watching cable news shows, which is a major feat for me because I was a political junkie. I craved all the news I could get. Now the need to fill 24 hours a day with analysis of 2 sentences of something someone said that wouldn't have even been considered news 15 years ago really drives me crazy. I'm just afraid that the more political parties that come into power will become more of a fractured government like they have in Jerusalem. Three or four conservative parties and three or four liberal parties who all have to broker deals to get a majority to make a ruling coalition. The mission statement for those parties is to block everything that the opposition wants.

My other pet peeve today- I seem to be on a pet peeve rant today- is the latest stuff about Holiday Trees and Christmas Trees. When did Christians get so narrow minded that everything has to be called Christian. The latest nonsense is about the state tree. I say lets have Christmas Trees, and Menorah's, and Muslim Crescents and every kind of religious symbol all represented in our schools and our government buildings and in the celebration of every season. I'm willing to be that if everything were allowed the group that is complaining the loudest about the word holiday would complain about something else. Of course the atheists will be offended if any religious symbols are used. Fox News and CNN will send out crews to cover the controversy hoping that it will stir up people to watch their newscasts and then all the radio talk shows and TV commentators will go nuts and then the politicians will get involved, etc... My mission statement for the year is to block out all the noise and nonsense and pay attention to important things.... like NFL football... Maybe my attitude just comes from being a Chicago Cubs fan. We're used to disappointment. There's always next season.